Wednesday, 26 January 2011

Postcard of the Day No. 43, Zoppot

Today’s cards feature the lost architecture of the seashore. This magnificent assemblage of beach furniture provides shelter from the harsh winds of the Baltic shore. Polish one day, German the next and then back to Poland, these are the occupants of contentious territory. In the Third Reich it was known as Zoppot, the Poles prefer to call it Sopot. The beach is packed with curious structures – attenuated basket-woven beach huts or canopied basketwork chairs. There remain some outposts in the Baltic coast where modern equivalents can be found. In the past they were especially popular in Holland in the form of Scheveningen High Back Beach Chairs. The beach at Blankenberghe takes on an unsettling air of impermanence – there’s nothing here that couldn’t be rolled away in a matter of minutes. An alternative reading would have it as the first line of coastal defence, ready and willing to protect the integrity of the motherland by any means necessary.